SEA to ATL

This is a picture I took flying back to Atlanta from Seattle. It shows a contrail from a plane during a December sunset.



This was a very unique situation where I was able to see a contrail from three sides. Usually when most people see contrails it is from the ground looking up. In this case I saw it as our plane approached it and then from behind and finally from the other side... by the time I got my camera ready we were flying away from it.



Same flight just outside of Seattle and just above the low clouds surrounding the city and Mt. Rainier.



You can see the snow blowing off the top of the mountain with the stronger winds at higher elevation.



This is a picture I took a couple days before flying back to Atlanta. The Argosy coming back to the Kirkland dock.

CHANGES ON THE HORIZON

The majority of our weather comes from the west and today if you looked to the west you could see it coming. I took this picture around noon. Notice how the sky is sort of split in two. There was blue on the top part and white below. It made a pretty clear line in the sky.



The orange dot on the satellite image is about where I took the picture in Kirkland. It is looking across lake Washington at the city of Seattle. I drew an orange line on the satellite image where I believe to be the front edge of the clouds in the previous picture. The thin clouds to the east of the orange line are also visible in the previous picture.



Some of the thin clouds were thick enough to produce a halo around the sun. As expected the rest of the clouds moved in later in the day consuming the blue sky. These clouds are ahead of a weak weather system that is expected to bring Seattle at least a little bit of rain Wednesday.

GOODBYE WINTER! It was... while it lasted

Hopefully we have said goodbye to winter for the last time. It looks likely now that we face what could be our first 70 degree day of 2009. Tomorrow or Monday we should see temperatures in the mid to upper 60s and maybe even 70 in Seattle. Maybe. Just two days ago snow flakes were flying around western Washington.



This past winter was a lot of things to a lot of people. For those who were adversely affected by the snow, wind or flooding, the winter of 2008-2009 is one they would probably like to forget. For those of us who depend on the weather to make a living, it was busy!

Now that it seems we are really heading into spring, I would like to share some of my favorite pictures from this past season. These pictures are from Marina Park in Kirkland. I took them the Sunday night before Christmas. It also happened to be the first day of winter.

Some of my favorite photo outings are after work and late at night. Unfortunately, when the weather beckons me to pull my camera and tripod outside late at night it usually involves snow or ice.
Now I’m looking forward to one of my favorite seasons: sunset season.